


chill, listeners

by sapphee



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Welcome to Night Vale Setting, Fluff, M/M, Romance, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10540461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphee/pseuds/sapphee
Summary: Check Please and WTNV fusion, with Nursey as Cecil and Ransom as Carlos. Part 1 was written for Day 7 of Nursey Week, and Part 2 was written for Day 1 of Ransom Week (though the latter was super late, my apologies!!).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> these are more like drabbles, i guess? they're not at all plot-heavy because i tend to write short things anyway ([hockey science au](http://archiveofourown.org/series/493942) was an anomaly). and it's kinda not really a fic either? mostly script-y stuff? i don't even know. i just know i really really wanted to see this be a thing, which is why i wrote it. this honestly was just an excuse to write some fluff and combine two of my most favorite things ever, omgcp and wtnv. three, if you count nurseyrans, one of my favorite check please ships of color (newsflash: i love all check please ships of color). i hope you like it as much as i had fun writing it! 
> 
> please reblog part one [here](http://omgcphee.tumblr.com/post/157248530329/nursey-week-day-7-memories-red-nurseyrans) and part two [here](http://omgcphee.tumblr.com/post/159174315779/ransomweek-ransom-week-day-1-celebration)! thanks <3
> 
> i don't know when i'll come back to this, but i'd definitely like to! i just have a lot of feelings about this 'verse on top of a lot of projects i want to do. i'm uploading some drabbles i've written on my check please sideblog ([omgcphee](http://omgcphee.tumblr.com)) next, and then after that, i'm going to try to finish the [galendars thing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10210046) asap!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for some really vague, brief mentions of blood and gore that would be, i guess, typical for wtnv? it's not very detailed, but please read safely!

DEREK NURSE: Hey, listeners. It’s time to chill with your favorite surviving Night Vale Community Radio intern, Derek Nurse, again, because I’ll be [bleep] if I don’t make it to the end. This isn’t a horror movie, you know?  You may recall that we had a newcomer in Night Vale, a year ago? Dr. Justin Oluransi, who’s a scientist here to… science, or something? 

DEREK: Sorry again for telling everyone to boycott your barbershop, Telly the Barber. I hadn’t realized yet that Dr. Justin Oluransi, one of the most beautiful, hilarious, clever, charming, and amazing men in the world that I have ever met, could cut his own hair. Or that he would be talented enough at cutting his own hair that it looked like it was done by a professional. 

DEREK: Thing is, Justin’s hair before his haircut was a masterpiece. It’s one of my favorite things about him, item number 11 from that poem I was reading you last week, before Station Management cut me off. 

DEREK: So when he dropped by the radio station that first time, holding two coffees in his hands, hot coffees that were still steaming, red as the Night Vale Botanical Gardens’ Martian grass, the steam rising in heart shapes and conjuring predictions of the future, before dissipating to mingle with the ghosts among us, with a pattern of 10 digits scrawled on the side of one cup, before he handed that cup with the 10 digits to me–I was shocked. Frozen in place, like I had accidentally tripped my way into the dog park again, every muscle completely locked in place. 

DEREK: I don’t remember all that much about that moment. Just that his haircut, now much shorter, framed his face in a whole different way. Sometimes you meet someone, and you can see these wisps of future memories of you and that person being together. That’s the beauty of Night Vale Night Coffee, who sponsors us today–’Dark, endless, impossible to sleep through.’ 

DEREK: Sometimes, you see these wisps of visiting Justin at his lab, where he studies the goings-on of Night Vale, where he demonstrates his ability to science, time and time again, where he studies answers to look for the questions we never thought to ask, where he yawns and it travels through his entire body, and he looks at you when you come in, and his weary face breaks for something else when his eyes piece together your visage, and that information travels to the image-processing areas of his brain, and his brain makes connections to the reserves of his long-term memory, and at last, his brain achieves recognition, and he gets up and walks over to you, and brings you into his embrace, and he rests his chin on your shoulder, and he says, “What are you doing here? I thought I told you it was going to be a late night–Jenny and Mandy seem to be more incorporeal than they usually insist, so I’ve had to do everything myself today,” and you hold up your red glowing plastic bag of take-out from Jerry’s, and you say, “I know, but the emojis in your text kept dripping ‘S.O.S. CORAL REEF ALERT’ all over the screen of my phone,” and he sighs, a heady, lovely sound that travels all the way from your ears to your toes, curling around the rest of your body, like the spring leaves of the Night Vale Redwoods, the ones that are red no matter the season, like a soft cloud of warmth that clings to you without feeling sticky. 

DEREK: Other times, because Justin always brings you always hot, always steaming coffee, those wisps fly away from your cup, and they hover right by your ear, whispering to you about how Justin listens to you on the radio whenever he can, because he loves the way your voice projects, so warm and chill at the same time, the way he pretends every syllable is for him, every syllable is a fleeting kiss on the shell of his ear, every syllable a pocket of the truths you wanted to keep tucked away within the confines of your rib cage, but you could not resist letting out anyway, on the off-chance that he might be walking past, when a soft breeze happens upon him, and those syllables coast along that breeze into his own open, eager rib cage, while he was on his way to see you at the Night Vale radio station, after he bumped into each of your four moms at the last town hall, where he asked after you to learn more about Night Vale Community Radio’s longest-surviving intern, because he grew up with radio and was feeling homesick, and turned on the radio after his TV almost bit him, to hear your voice, which is the sound of home for many Night Vale listeners, and now him, too, and he gathers up all his courage to bring you your favorite coffee and has to stop momentarily upon arriving at the Night Vale radio station, to make his way through the maze of bloody entrails without staining his lab coat completely red, just to look at you as you narrate the proceedings of the secret LAX bros, as your responsibility to all Night Vale residents. 

DEREK: And yet, other times, these wisps show you previews of your first date at Annie’s, where the light of the red sun casts Justin in a warm, homey glow, of the first time you and Justin try to follow Mandy and Jenny home to figure out if they live in the Night Vale Cemetery or in the dog park, and Justin bites his lip because he doesn’t want you to go into the dog park with him, fending everyone off with his hockey stick when they come out of the dog park to chase the both of you, of the first time he leans back against your front door after walking you home when it was clear that the dog park was too volatile for the scientific method and lets you bring your face closer, so that you may touch your forehead against his, so that you may be able to smell the smoke coming off his lab coat from when the dog park suddenly set itself aflame and he grabbed your hand and you two ran forever, so that you may be able to rest your palms against the mahogany (for now) door and you may tell him about the way he feels like home more than Night Vale ever has and he may tell you about the rattle in his bones that has calmed since meeting you, so that you may feel your lips pulling into a smile while seeing his do the same and you may pull him into a kiss that turns into two, three–

DEREK NURSE: And the weather. 


	2. Chapter 2

JUSTIN OLURANSI: Yo, listeners. _[laughs]_  Was that too much? Sorry. As you might have realized, I’m not your favorite surviving Night Vale Community Radio intern, Derek Nurse. I’m his, well, I’m the reason he told all of you to boycott Telly the Barber, remember that time? Sorry again, Telly. Let me know if you want more tips, and I’ll drop by!  

JUSTIN: …you’re going to be hearing me say that a lot, because I’m Canadian. And a scientist. I’m covering for Derek today because he’s sick with a cold, and I’m pretty sure it’s because someone sneezed on him a few days ago. Or maybe it was the Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives inside your home. Mandy and Jenny–who used to be the Formless ‘90s Sorority Girls who secretly lived inside my lab before they got swallowed by a wormhole across the street from the college and came back visible but not tangible–tell me the Faceless Old Woman has been sounding rather sniffly lately. _[more softly]_  Hey babe, hope you’re doing okay at home. I love you. I left you some– _[crash, then some scuffling sounds, and a cat’s meow]_ –sorry, that was Management. They said I was supposed to be getting on to reporting the traffic. _[more quickly]_  There’ssomechickensoupinthefridge.

JUSTIN: On to traffic. Do you ever think about the roads we travel? I left my alma mater, Samwell, not sure if I still wanted to be a doctor, even though I’d done premed there. I decided I’d do something different for a year. Reframe and refocus, eh? I did some consulting before I decided to go to grad school for biology instead of becoming a doctor. I was then invited to teach and conduct research here at Night Vale, through an email sent by Night Vale Community College.

JUSTIN: Strange email. Opening the email caused my Mac to shut down three times, until I finally switched over to a Windows PC. I don’t think it likes Apple that much. The screen turned a pale purple, and the message was initially blank. I later realized that if I printed it out, dripped a little color dye on the paper, and used my microscope to look at the paper’s cells, now stained purple even though the dye I used was green, I could just barely make out the letters, which were backwards, like whoever had sent it had used a mirror to reverse their writing. 

JUSTIN: Don’t ask how I figured that out. I had Excel spreadsheets documenting all those attempts, but I don’t have them anymore, for some reason, like they were erased or something. I came home from the lab after my first day of work–the day I first saw the most beautiful surviving Community Radio intern of Night Vale–to find a note that says “The Secret Police were here,” and it was all gone.

JUSTIN: Back to roads, like the one I traveled to get to today, which is my birthday, and also Derek’s and my one-year anniversary. It took me a month to get the right order for Derek’s coffee down, so that it wouldn’t have evaporated or dissolved the cup it was in, before I could pay a visit to the radio station and give it to him. I was so nervous–my hands would shake, and then I’d suddenly find that the coffee had disappeared. 

JUSTIN: Again, as a friendly reminder, Night Vale Night Coffee, who is sponsoring us again today, needs your hands to be steady, so that it can get its own sleep, which is vital for its development into the ‘dark, endless, and impossible to sleep through’ dose of caffeine you love and fear. Otherwise, your coffee’s just going to bail on you, especially if you’re trying to stick a sample under a microscope to study it. 

JUSTIN: Anyway, Derek’s sick, so we’ll be celebrating our anniversary quietly at home after I’m done giving you the news. Remember that time Old Woman Josie’s cousin Soothsayer Rosie-Not-”Erika with a K”-”That’s Erika-with-a-K All Together Like That Not Just ‘Rose-Not-Erika-with-a-K-as-in-Erica-with-a-C-which-I-definitely-do-not-mean-because-Erika-is-always-spelled-with-a-K-you-understand?” visited my lab because she thought my lab assistants were actually angels, who may or may not be real and who had changed their names from Erika to Mandy and Jenny? 

JUSTIN: Soothsayer Rosie-Not—-Soothsayer Rosie, for brevity’s sake–read my palm and said all my roads pointed to Derek Nurse, my favorite and longest-surviving Night Vale Community Radio intern. That no one else could’ve received that email to conduct research at Night Vale Community College. That something about my heart and his called out to each other. 

> “PANIC MODE,” mine shouted constantly. 
> 
> “Chill,” his answered. 
> 
> “As if you’re not doing the same under your nonchalant facade,” mine said. 
> 
> “What are you talking about? I’m chill all the time,” his said. 
> 
> “You’re only pr–”

JUSTIN: _[pauses, laughs]_  Looks like we have a caller, here to give us some on-the-ground traffic updates. Yeah?

DEREK NURSE: Dude. Why are you calling me out on Night Vale Community Radio?

JUSTIN: I’m reminiscing. Celebrating. Remember that time, though?

DEREK: _[coughs,_ probably _because he has a cold; his voice cracks]_ Yeah. I do. Your roads led to me, my roads led to you. Sorry today had to be like this, babe. Happy birthday. 

JUSTIN: _[voice softens, becoming gentler]_ It’s okay. Make it up to me. Wanna get married? 

DEREK: _[voice cracks again; he sounds hoarse–his cold must’ve worsened because the Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives inside your home must’ve opened all the windows again]_  That’d–that’d be pretty chill. 

JUSTIN: _[voice is still gentle, soft]_  The thing about roads you travel–they’re winding, and you can be on them forever, riding them all night and day. You never know where you’re going, until Soothsayer Rosie explains to you why you felt such a pull to this place, why you felt so drawn to community radio. That’s all for traffic. Thanks for letting me host. Once again, I’m Dr. Justin Oluransi, a professor at Night Vale Community College and Night Vale’s favorite and longest-surviving Night Vale Radio intern-and-soon-to-be-host Derek Nurse’s fiancé. 

JUSTIN: Good night, Night Vale.

**Author's Note:**

> my omgcp sideblog is omgcphee! follow me for omgcpoc content, diaspora feels/ramblings/projections on chowder, puns, and shitposts! and the occasional fic, of course.


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